Apple Expands (Again) iBook Logic-Board Program

JMZorko writes "Apple has extended the repair program to widen the serial # range yet again for iBooks experiencing the dreaded, dreaded (and did I say dreaded?) video problems. It now includes serial #s up to the UV342 range (which, sadly, mine is in .. here I thought I finally got one that would stay with me for awhile, sigh)."

Comments

grr

[boredMDer]

Three times now, my Dual USB iBook has been in the shop.

Actually it's in right now, the Apple store can ship it out monday, so I should have it by Friday (hopefully, I have them shipping it directly to my house).

Twice now, the LCD (actually backlight) fails to light on start unless there's an external CRT connected...the second time, it was just random freezes and they replaces the logic board.

This time I'm definitely calling up Apple and bitching at them about this...but if it fails again, they'll replace it likely for a 1 GHz G4 iBook...I think that's the lowest end iBook now. Note that mine is a refurb G3 800 (12").

I can understand the initial failure...maybe the second, but come on, three times?

Eh.

Although I still love apple. Don't ask why. Luckily, I got it in February so it's all under the one year warranty.

I know, not informative or insightful but I was bored and I had something relevant to say. Mods, mod away.

Re:grr

[JMZorko]

Could you kindly illuminate me as to how to get Apple to offer a replacement? This is the situation i'm in: I have an iBook 700 that has been sent back 4 times for this problem, and iBook 900 that has been sent back twice (including this latest one that happened the other day), and an iBook 900 that -- so far -- has not exhibited the problem (though it has the UV342xxxxxx serial #, i've no doubt that it will). Every time i've spoken with Apple tech support, they've told me that replacement just is not an option. Once, the representative was downright mean about it, refusing to connect me with anyone higher up in the chain of command, refusing to give me any information about himself other than his first name, etc.

I go to great lengths to put Apple in a good light to all of my friends and coworkers, but with each bad iBook experience I have (and i've had _6_ now on the iBooks with this issue), I look like a fool to others i've attempted to enlighten, and sometimes myself when I look in the mirror. Every 3 months it seems (which is the frequency that this seems to happen with mine), I have more and more difficulty proselytizing Apple to others, and myself. I don't want it to be this way.

Regards,

John

Re:grr

[Anonymous Coward]

You are aware that you're covered by the Repair Extension Program, right? Don't worry about the warranty...you've got quite a bit longer before its coverage of your iBook runs out, AFAICT.

Re:grr

[boredMDer]

Well I was under the impression that after three, a sort of 'lemon law' type policy comes into effect.

I was talkign with the guy at the Genius bar at the store in Towson (MD), asked what the replacement policy was for defective units, and that's what he told me. He said 'after this repair (mind you this is the third time it's been sent in) you can call up Apple customer service about replacement of the unit'.

So I can /talk/ with them, not quite sure if I'll get it. I mean, seriously, replacing the logic board three times? That's worthy of a replacement. I know if my server's motherboard failed three times in a row I'd return it or just buy another one...get it replaced, whatever.

We'll see. I'm currently looking around apple's site for policies in this regard.

If you want to contact me, see if I've found anything about this, if you use AIM (any chat client using TOC or OSCAR), my screen name is boredMDer74.

I do hope that you get yours replaced, as do I mine.

Re:grr

[McAddress]

Could you kindly illuminate me as to how to get Apple to offer a replacement?

in a word: No. Apple will go to great lengths to avoid giving you a replacement. Each replacement iBook costs quite a bit of money, and unless you are a really good Apple customer, the chances of it making economic sense for them are practically nil. The best way to get a new machine would be if it is part of a larger contract, at which point it pays for them to keep you happy.

sorry.

Re:grr

[Halfbaked Plan]

Probably hiring an attorney is the next step to take.

Re:grr

[Johnny Mnemonic]

I am an ex-Genius, so let me tell you how we handled this kind of situation:

• There is nothing like a "lemon law" for computers. Maybe there should be, but there isn't.
• There isn't a formal policy that I'm aware of at Apple that stipulates that they will replace machines after the third attempted fix.
• Even if there is a formal policy, you're sure as hell not going to find it posted in a public place--that would open them to all sorts of liability when there is no legal compunction for them to do so. Even if there is a policy, to stipulate to that in public would be foolish. Much better from their perspective to be able to retain the ability to interpret the policy as they see fit.
• Although there is no national law, you may be covered by a state law that essentially is along the lines of the product being "fit for use." Lemon law refers specifically to cars and has language that is for car purchases--but some states have consumer protection laws, or contract law, that might be relevant in a more generic manner.

All that said, generally if a customer had worked with us through three repairs of a unit, especially of the same component, we escalated the issue and generally that customer's unit was replaced. My inclination is that the ability to secure a replacement had something to do with product refresh cycles--you're much more likely to get a better unit if the line is about to be refreshed and they want to clear inventory, for example. Otherwise, you'll get a comparable unit in specs or the lowest new model that still meets those specs and features.

Bottomline--after three repairs you should explain your case, describe your patience and willingness to work through the issue, but that your willingness has now come to an end. Polite but firm is the order of the day--don't whinge, don't scream and shout and call people names or impune their ancestry and professionalism, but you also should resist being bullied, and if they've already tried three times, they'll ask for a fourth attempt, but if you're firm and polite you should be able to refuse that. Ask to speak to a "Customer Service" Rep, as there is a group at Apple that does this full time and is a different group than either the AppleCare agents or the Geniuses. They can facilitate this for you, but you need to ask to talk to them, ask to talk to them directly, and are very relunctant to help if you haven't given Apple three chances already. However, if you have, I think that they'll satisfy you.

I can say that these instances were pretty freakin' rare--while certainly Macs break, we pretty much always got it fixed on the first attempt and then did our damnednest to get it done on the second. I think I can count on one hand the number of times a unit failed after three attempts, in the 18 mos that I worked as a Genius. And for those, we helped the customer with CR best we could, so if one is available they may prove to be a valuable ally. Good luck.

Re:grr

[falcon5768]

In NJ everything is covered under a lemon law, breaks 3 times you must get a replacement otherwise the state will (and has) press charges against the company. Im going on time 3 with my iBook...

Re:grr

[Anonymous Coward]

> Although I still love apple. Don't ask why. Luckily, I got it in February so it's all under the one year warranty.

The "Reality Distortion Field" strikes again! If Jobs only had a patent he could make BILLIONS from the royalties.

On a more serious note, this just goes to show the lengths some folks will go to in order to avoid having to admit (to themselves) that they've gotten a bum deal, dump the sucker (not just Macs, btw) and replace it with something else.

Re:grr

[maddvibe]

Mine has had the logic board replace three times already as well. So far about every 6 months it has died. I'm due for another break down in December. :P I'm getting tired of this thing breaking, but I still love it when it works. Last time I brought it in the genius said that if it happens again they'll probably replace it with a new iBook. I would love that, but now that he said that, it'll probably keep running forever. I think I'd prefer it to keep running anyway. I'm just glad that Apple fix my laptop for free even though it is out of warrenty now.

Re:grr

[Anonymous Coward]

The federal equivalent is called the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act. It requires that products be repaired within a "resonable number of attempts". It only applies to things intended for consumer use, and doesn't apply to products intended for business use. That's where the iBook may or may not qualify.... Hard to say. That having been said, it is disingenuous to say that no such law exists.

iBook woes

[isd_glory]

Man, I feel lucky that I had my iBook problems well before apple "announced" the issue. My iBook failed for the fourth time around September of last year, and rather than just blindly send it in again, I got on the phone with a customer representative and bitched my way up the phone chain until I got in touch with someone who could help.

After a bit of discussion (namely that I no longer trusted in the worry-free operation of my laptop), I got them to refund the money I paid for my then year-old iBook and use the money to purchase a new PowerBook. Of course I also had to send them a cashier's check for the difference, but I feel that the upgrade was worth it.

Ever since the iBook repair extension was announced, it seems that Apple has changed their stance on this issue. Had my iBook died a few months later, they would have just replaced the logic board again instead of letting me come up with some other options.

Does the problem still exist?

[baywulf]

I'd like to get an Apple notebook but an Powerbook is out of my price range. If I get a recent iBook do the problems still exist or have the manufacturing issues been resolved?

Re:Does the problem still exist?

[c4Ff3In3 4ddiC]

I have an 12" iBook G4 purchased about two months ago. Even though the serial number is in the range covered by the replacement program, I haven't had any video problems. Go ahead and get an iBook, you won't be disappointed.

Re:Does the problem still exist?

[boredMDer]

AFAIK only the G3 dual USB's were affected.

You should be good with the current batch of G4 iBook's.

Get one, you won't regret it...

Re:Does the problem still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

i got an iBook G4 from the UV346 , and it's not in the new service range and my logic board is yet working , i'm quite happy with my iBook although i keep hoping this problem won't show up on my logic board.

Re:Does the problem still exist?

[mst76]

> If I get a recent iBook do the problems still exist or have the manufacturing issues been resolved?

The G4 iBooks are still pretty new (less than 1 year) so nobody knows for sure. Still, I'd be surprised if they haven't solved the problems, even for the G3s. The reason is simple economics. They've commited themselves to replacing every logic board with the problems. If they haven't really solved the problems, this would cost them more money in the long run than spending any amount of resources to find a final working solution (even ignoring the loss of goodwill and potential future sales).

Re:Does the problem still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I have an 12" iBook G4 purchased about two months ago. [...] I haven't had any video problems.

One iBook that hasn't had problems for 2 months is a rather small sample. The scale of the problem in the G3s only became apparent when they were about a year in production.

Re:Does the problem still exist?

[Halo1]

Actually, the G4 iBooks haven't been out long enough yet to know that for sure. Most G3 iBooks only started failing after about 1 year. I really do hope they got it fixed, though...

-- Someone who has a G3 iBook with a 4th replacement logic board (because he was unlucky enough to have experienced two different kinds of logic board failures, so it has been replaced once for 1 issue and 3 times for another and they only want to talk about giving a replacement if the same issue occurs for the 4th time).

Re:Does the problem still exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true: I have a 16-vram iBook (which succeeded the dual-USB), and it's already had the LB issue once. Fortunately, it's in the range of serial numbers eligible for extended LB service.

Re:Does the problem still exist?

[welshsocialist]

When the program was first expanded back in April, I posted my experence to MacSlash. I wrote at the time:

My iBook is the Early 2003 G3 900 14 inch model with the RAM bumped up from 256 MB to 384 MB. The model # is in the UV337x range.

According to the FAQ, one of the symptions of the logic board failure is scrambled video. This action happened to me yesterday when booting up, going past the black on white Apple logo to the desktop itself. I then rebooted and everything has been normal since then. This also occured when the iBook was running off the battery.

This occured to me on April 28, the day before the first expansion. Since then, the problem has not happened. In my mind, this issue is closed.

Re:Does the problem still exist?

[HoserHead]

My G3 iBook failed four times (well, the fourth time was a botched repair) before its first year anniversary. I don't know whether that is indicative of a trend, but all the people talking about replacements and repairs indicates to me that your blanket statement "Most ... started faling after about 1 year" should be called into question.

And yes, I did get a replacement G4 iBook which has been running fine since.

Why sad?

[Have Blue]

If your iBook is not actually experiencing any problems, what's there to be sad about? Since the entire line is several months old now, you should be well into the safe area of the bathtub curve.

Re:Why sad?

[JMZorko]

... oh, but I _have_ had these problems, 6 times now (4 with an iBook 700, 2 with the 900, and counting). I bring my iBook to work everyday (it's just very cool to have a laptop *nix box with me to test C++, Perl, bash scripts, etc. on). Many have commented about it, and i've taken every opportunity to tell them what nifty machines they are. However, every 3-4 months when it's gone for a week or so, and people ask where my little white companion is, I have to tell them, "It's being repaired." "Again?" "Yes, again."

Regards,

John

Re:Why sad?

[Halfbaked Plan]

You could test C++, Perl, bash scripts, etc. on a cheap Pentium I laptop you could buy on eBay for a hundred bucks or less.

Get one, stick Linux on it. "You won't regret it" (seems to be the meme getting tacked onto all the 'get a Mac' comments this evening)

Re:Why sad?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have had that many problems with a product and still tell people how "nifty" it is? Sending something in every 3 to 4 months for repair is unacceptable. If I had that many problems with any product, I would have nothing to do with them and trash their name every chance I had.

Re:Why sad?

[morcheeba]

It's the unusally low "wear-out" portion of the curve that people are complaining about -- and that seems to be a year into the life. So, unless I planned on selling it before then, I'd still worry.

Re:Why sad?

[crazyphilman]

Well, I just discovered my iBook is in the range affected, so I'm going to be selling it on Ebay and replacing it with a Panasonic Toughbook 28. Freakin' indestructible, and very Linux friendly!

Nice to see 'out of warranty' repairs

[amichalo]

It looks like Apple is really going out of its was to honor the quality of the product, even outside the 12 month warranty. I think this is admirable.

But Apple is sort of in a damned if you do/don't situation. They don't have a large market share to begin with and they obviously have a defective product so if they did NOT repair them, it would probably lead to negative publicity (both for not repairing them and having a poor quality product) and they would most likely (in my opinon) lose customers.

My Ti PowerBook (400Mhz G4) was a first gen Ti book and I love the thing but it is starting to show signs of aging (booting the computer always takes a couple trys...odd) but over all, I am very satisfied with the workmanship of this and other Apple products I own. Compared to my Dell, Gateway, and Sony consumer devices, I am happy to spend the premium for Apple's quality and service (when the quality doesn't suffice).

Re:Nice to see 'out of warranty' repairs

[DAldredge]

NO, it would result in a class action suit if they didn't fix them. And apple would lose that suit.

Re:Nice to see 'out of warranty' repairs

[ArbitraryConstant]

No, there would be a class action suit, it would take years to work out, and everyone would hate them before it was over. Then people who'd had it happen more than once would SOL.

I have a ton of friends that have considered iBooks and ultimately decided not to get one because it was too risky. They saw me and everyone they know with an iBook constantly getting it repaired.

This is my first Apple computer. I had major problems with every OS version I used up to 10.3.3. I had 2 power adaptors die after a few weeks of normal use, I've had the logic board replaced 4 times, the CD-ROM died, the extra memory died, and the backlight on the display died.

The thing's been fine for a year now. But you can bet I'll never touch another Apple again. I've had too many failures in too many different ways for it to be anything other than poor quality assurance. I have had more problems with this computer than with every computer I've ever owned, even if you expand that to include every computer my parents and sibblings owned while I was living with them (14 total since 1989, 4 of those were laptops.).

Re:Nice to see 'out of warranty' repairs

[Anonymous Coward]

My Ti PowerBook (400Mhz G4) was a first gen Ti book and I love the thing but it is starting to show signs of aging (booting the computer always takes a couple trys...odd) but over all, I am very satisfied with the workmanship of this and other Apple products I own.

The TiBook is not nearly old enough to show such signs of aging. I would NOT be satisfied with such "workmanship". I have several laptops (all Apple or IBM btw) over 5 years old that still run like new.

Re:Nice to see 'out of warranty' repairs

[Anonymous Coward]

> The thing's been fine for a year now. But you can bet I'll never touch another Apple again. I've had too many failures in too many different ways for it to be anything other than poor quality assurance.

It seems to be just with the iBooks; the other products are OK. I'd agree with not buying a new Mac product until at least a year after its introduction, though, just to make sure they don't have a repeat disaster.

But if the last ~6 months of that year's worth of message board traffic only show the usual kinds of issues, I'd feel safe buying at that point.

Re:Nice to see 'out of warranty' repairs

[ArbitraryConstant]

"It seems to be just with the iBooks; the other products are OK."

Except the iPod Minis which fail after a few weeks of normal use...

Re:Nice to see 'out of warranty' repairs

[bill_mcgonigle]

If enough people complain they see class action coming. They've lost a few.

They don't just fix it out of the goodness of their hearts.

For example, I've got an iBook/500 dual-usb. There is no ESD protection on the ports on the side, especially FireWire. Lots of people have lost their FireWire PHY chips due to ESD, and all new iBooks have proper ESD protection on their FireWire ports.

It's an obvious case of a design flaw leading to non-functional units, but there's no repair program for this problem.

Has Sony had these problems?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Seriously, has sony had anything like these problems with any of it s products? My Vaio is six years old now and running perfectly. Granted the people I know do not represent a large enoguh sample size to be statistically significant, but the only serious problems they've had are with the ibooks. Maybe it was jsut a generational one time problem, but its lead us to not recommend ibooks to our non techie friends. So far apple has lost 4 potential sales ( from our group of friends) because of it. Although, fixing things out of warrenty is very nice of them. Now their desktops seem to be of very high quality along with their powerbooks. Those, I would reccomned. Seriously, the os differnece doesn't matter that much to many people.

Re:Has Sony had these problems?

[Halfbaked Plan]

My fleet of Toshiba laptops is far older than 6 years and they work flawlessly as well. And my PowerBook 165c runs like a champ and has for longer than Apple has been selling PowerPC machines.

I don't think Apple has anything close to the build quality they did a decade ago. Apple is a company with a very uneven quality history.

question about this issue on iBooks

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe someone here would know this answer:

Just got a Dual USB iBook, and the thing makes a terrible buzzing noise. It comes from around the left speaker/Ethernet port area and I can't tell if its the hard drive or CPU. Moving a window on the screen made it buzz, and when the CPU has any load it buzzes.

Is this a symptom of this dreaded logic board problem? Or just a shitty hard drive or something? Apple says they are sending a box to look at it under warranty, but I don't to have to like send it back 3 times!!

I have a identical model (G3 800mhz CDROM) and it doesn't do this.

Anyone had any ideas?

Thank you!!

Re:question about this issue on iBooks

[Game Genie]

Apple says they are sending a box to look at it under warranty, but I don't to have to like send it back 3 times!!

Apple is generally very quick about repairs. Tho one time I had to send in my iBook for repair (I can't remember why) it was back in ~40 hours.

Re:question about this issue on iBooks

[dgatwood]

Digital to analog leak. Your video chip's natural electrical noise is bleeding into the audio output of your speaker. If it gets too bad, you should have it serviced. Probably a defective audio cable to the speaker, a dirty contact somewhere, or a floating ground somewhere in the audio subsystem. I couldn't guess which without opening it up, though.

Dual USB iBook fixed FOC several months ago

[HSpirit]

I had a free, out-of-warranty repair for this issue with my Dual USB iBook (G3-600 MHz, serial number beginning with UV201) several months ago.

(It was 'only' the second time for me - the first time was during the warranty period.)

So it looks like FOC repairs for these models has been an internal policy within Apple for some time - but now they're making it public?

Re:Dual USB iBook fixed FOC several months ago

[Anonymous Coward]

I had an identical experience. My ibook screen died twice--once during warranty and once after and Apple nicely fixed it for free both times.

Apple hardware serial decoding

[babbage]

FYI, the opening characters in the serial codes Apple uses indicate the product class & manufacture date of the product.

The initial letters of the serial string indicate the class of product. The letters "UV", for example, seem to be the code for iBooks, while iPods may start with "JQ" and a Powermac G5 may start with "XB". (I haven't yet figured out how often the letters are changed -- if, for example, the original iBook or the later G4 iBook had codes other than "UV" -- but whatever.)

More interestingly, the three digits following those first two letters indicate the year and the week during which that device was manufactured. So, for example, by setting the recall range to iBooks with codes from UV117XXXXXX to UV342XXXXXX, what they're admitting is that they had a problem from the 17th week of 2001 -- that is, the week starting Sunday, 22 Apr 2001 -- through the 42nd week of 2003 -- that is, Sunday, 12 Oct 2003. Approximately -- I'm not sure what day of the week they start counting on, or if Wednesday 1 Jan counts as being part of the 53rd week of the previous year, but again, whatever.

So, what they're saying is that all iBooks manufactured over a 30 month range had at least the possibility of a severe manufacturing defect.

Ouch.

Re:Apple hardware serial decoding

[ArbitraryConstant]

Even if you only count warranty repairs, this must have been costing Apple a fortune. What I can't figure out is how they failed to do something about it for that entire time. There were many revisions in that time.

Re:Apple hardware serial decoding

[Bombcar]

Just to add to what you've discovered, my Powerbook G4 starts out W84210XXXXX.....

1.33 GHz, 15 inch, etc.

Re:Apple hardware serial decoding

[Echnin]

My iBook G4 12" 800 MHz's serial number starts with UV402, so they've kept the "UV" code. Bought it in, humm, February, maybe.

Re:Apple hardware serial decoding

[yuvtob]

damn! since my previous gen Powerbook starts with UV409... does that mean I actually have an iBook?!

Re:Apple hardware serial decoding

[babbage]

Is it a 12" model? I thought those were basically identical to the 12" iBook but with a metal shell instead of plastic.

In any case, I don't have information on how Apple chooses to designate machines as far as the initial letter-codes go. The part I'm more sure about -- because an employee at an Apple store pointed it out to me -- is that the next three digits represent year & week that the device was manufactured.

And just to add another datapoint, Powermac G4s also seem so to start with "XB". If the CPU class is encoded in the serial number, that must come up after the datestamp. The same may also be the case of their laptops -- maybe they all start with "UV", but I don't have access to any Powerbook G4s, old clamshell iBooks, or older Powerbook G3s to compare.

Re:Apple hardware serial decoding

[Raptor CK]

It's not. I'm posting from a 12" Powerbook, S/N UV312XXXXXX.

Which, oddly enough, places me in the "threatened" range, even though I don't even *have* an iBook.

at least it's quick and painless...

[jspivack]

I live in France, and I sent my 700MHz iBook in for logic board replacement when it exhibited the symptoms last month. I called Apple on Monday morning; UPS came by on Tuesday morning; I had the computer back in my hands Thursday afternoon. And the European repair center is in Holland!

I do have a question, though...they reinstalled Panther (10.3.2) and gave me specific Panther CD's (again, 10.3.2) because the new logic board is apparently incompatible with anything lower. Also, the "Details" section of the repair certificate says "Diagnostic, PCBA, MLB, 700Mhz, OASIS, iBook,,A12". I interpret the first two acronyms to be Printed Circuit Board Assembly and Main Logic Board; does the A12 at the end refer to the 12" aluminum G4 PB? Is this motherboard, which only supports 10.3.2 and may be common with a PB mobo, perhaps upgraded or faster than the original? (sounds too good to be true...it probably is) Is there any way I can tell?

Well...

[psyconaut]

""Apple has extended the repair program to widen the serial # range yet again for iBooks experiencing the dreaded, dreaded (and did I say dreaded?) video problems. It now includes serial #s up to the UV342 range (which, sadly, mine is in .. here I thought I finally got one that would stay with me for awhile, sigh)."

Kinda sucks to have to RMA, but at least Apple are doing it, eh? I can't think of many personal computer manufacturers who have done such decent pseudo-recalls.

-psy

Should I take in my iBook?

[Zhe Mappel]

Twice in the past year I've opened up my two-year old 700mhz iBook to screwy video. Each time I've closed the lid, reopened, and the problem has gone away.

Should I try to swap out the board, or consider myself lucky and stick with it? Will Apple even regard such rare occurrences as evidence of a problem? One year left on warranty. . .

Re:Should I take in my iBook?

[Game Genie]

Take a picture of it so you have somthing to show them. Take it to the Apple Store, and get them to do somthing about it.

Re:that jobs guy is a jerk

[Fred Or Alive]

I've had to do that, and build the system back up again (600Mhz with ATI Rage graphics). Luckily I found a website saying how to do it. The end of a headphone connector broke off inside the port, which naturally wasn't a good thing. Disassemblarity ensued, almost to the hard drive level, and I've still got an odd screw somewhere.

Probably screwed up other things as well, the backlight has recently started going out permanently if I move the screen towards the keyboard, although that might be related to the couple of times I kinda dropped it as well (so might the fact the casing is coming apart by the screen hinge, although the screen has been off-kilter ever since it got disassembled). Somehow I don't think I qualify for the repairs, at least they don't seem to be the same problems as described in the site, external video is fine and it's not scrambled / intermittent etc.. But when the screen does die I'll still have a neat compact Amiga 600 style computer. ;-)

I wonder if it's possible to remove the screen safely? ;-)

Backup Regularly and Just Watch It

[DaRat]

I'd say just backup regularly (a good idea in any case), and just watch for more frequent occurrences of the problem. I have an 800 MHz iBook which has occasionally shown the same problem, but I'm not going to be concerned about it unless the problem starts cropping up regularly.

Re:Backup Regularly and Just Watch It

[singleantler]

I'd agree with the backing up. When my 600 MHz iBook went it would be fine after a reboot, but quickly got worse and worse so by the time I phoned Apple and went through their tests on the phone it wouldn't boot at all. Luckily before it got to this stage I got most of my data copied off it, but I could easily have lost everything if the fix hadn't gone well.

From first symptoms of glitching video through to pretty-paperweight stage only took about a week for me. Maybe you're lucky and something else caused those problems.

How many have had no problems?

[vonFinkelstien]

I have a G3-700 iBook, which is under the policy. I bought it in September 2002, and have had no problems with the logic board (I have a bum battery, but didn't realize it until the warranty expired).

Anyone else experiencing no problems with their iBook? What percentage of user have problems with the logic board?

tssfulk

Re:How many have had no problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

My family has 2 iBooks whose serials fall within the covered range (500mhz mid 2001 and 600mhz early 2002). They have been used heavily since purchase and we've had no problems at all with either of them.

They shipped with OS X 10.1.5 and it was a bit slow. With Jaguar and especially Panther they're quite snappy now and showing no signs of age. The best thing I can say about Apple is that my 3 year old laptop is twice as fast now as it was when I bought it. That's some great value for the money.

I almost wish my iBook *would* break so I could rationalize the cost of a new Powerbook. :)

Re:that jobs guy is a jerk--

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the same one 500 mhz dual usb white ice ibook. Love the little critter but wanted a bigger hard drive but didn't want to pay to have it done. Did a Google search and found these directions http://www.bluap.nl/mac/ibookdual.php . As I took it apart I used a muffin tin to keep each group of screws together except for the Upper RF shield...since that one has screws of different sizes I taped each screw to the picture so I knew where it went on reassembly. I think it took and hour to take apart, 5 minutes to swap the drive out and another hour to put it back together. The start up sound never sounded so good! Take a look at the directions and maybe you can get yours together. The only problem I have had since then is the battery doesn't want to stay in...the lock wiggles loose so I have put some tape across the lock and the problem is fixed. Now, about the serial number on these puppies...where is it located? Inside the battery compartment that I have so nicely limited my access to? I have not had a single problem with the video...tho I did have to replace the keyboard recently...keys came off and wouldn't go back on...ebay to the rescue there! Barb

Great. Now I can get my old iBook fixed for free

[Hebetsubeach]

I have a non-working old iBook which is in the expanded serial range. When it first stopped booting, I was told it would be $800+ to get the logic board replaced. Now I can get it fixed for free.

Apple's Tech Support SUCKS

[The Lost Supertone]

I will tell you right now, at least up in Canada Apple's customer service is CRAP. I got my iBook's logic board replaced four times before we demanded it be replaced, we ended up paying the diff of 500 CND, and got my new Alu book which has been fine. But I refuse to recommend any iBooks to anyone. Essentially the only way to deal with Apple is to show them that you're really pissed off about this, and that you NEED your computer. And when they offer you something say that's not good enough. Call a lot, and if need be yell. My mother also called (I had a fairly heavy course load when it happened and we wanted it ASAP), and she's really good at yelling at customer service. But you're right Apple saves pennies by jerking customer's chains when they want them replaced, and they really shouldn't. I have been outright lied to, I have been transfered, put on hold for hours, and the whole nine yards... that said... my new PowerBook was worth it... I think...

Re:Apple's Tech Support SUCKS

[loid_void]

I get great customer service on all issues. I treat the person on the other end of the line like a human being, even use humor at times, and they have never failed me. Have you ever tried the customer service with other companies? Most of them fall way beneath that of Apple. I know it's frustrating at times, but the machine still blows away a PC.

Re:Apple's Tech Support SUCKS

[csirac]

Call a lot, and if need be yell.

I hope you tried being polite first. And by "call a lot", unless they are stuffing you around/missed dates, once a day is tolerable.

As someone who's worked on tech support, a rational explanation of your history and situation can command respect without the need for any yelling, abuse, or threats.

Does Apple track support accounts using support IDs? If so I can guarantee that from now on, every time you call, they punch your number in, your past behaviour will be flagged on their system. On our system, customers flagged AH were prioritized at the end of the queue for their support category when the shop is overloaded with work.

If the customer starts abusing/swearing at any staff, policy was that the boss could order jobs to be reverted/cancelled, the account to be settled and closed. Seen that a few times; even refunded/re-acquired systems and networking hardware, labour etc. to take their trading value back to $0. In other words, no longer our customer. At all.

We're just not interested in doing business with abusive arseholes. On the other hand, Apple has a legal obligation towards your warranty support so they have no choice in what customers they can get rid of.

If they were the ones that were being rude to you first, try and speak to a different operator. This might just mean hanging up and trying again. They're not all the same - their HR department/colleagues may even be interested to hear what you have to say about Joe Operator if he was being deliberately unhelpful or incompetent. They won't know until you tell them about it.

Did you provide any history/details or talk to anyone handling the repair job? I'm not sure how Apple works, but with Canon/HP/Oki/LGe/Acer etc. the actual repair job may be dispatched to a 3rd party general purpose repair centre with different job system.

Is it possible Apple was not providing repair history to the repair centre? Perhaps even sending it to different repair centres each time? If the first phone call you made was after the 4th job, that may be why it had seen 4 attempts.

But you're right Apple saves pennies by jerking customer's chains when they want them replaced, and they really shouldn't.

In your case, four times, same fault - sure. At our shop, though, we had some customers demand complete replacement systems even on the first failure (simply because it's new, it surely can't fail!). If your system has had two or three unrelated failures, it can be quite hard to convince you that the repaired system is no more likely to fail than a whole new one.

It's a big decision to replace a whole system, since you've essentially got rid of 2 systems + parts + labour for the price of one.

Just remember that the poor schmuck on the other end of the phone is just trying to do their job, yelling and screaming will rarely help your situation, you need to co-operate and help him/her help YOU.

If up-front abuse does work, that's probably at the expense of standard operating procedure, dignity, and the support guy being intimidated (wants you off his back).

I have been outright lied to, I have been transfered, put on hold for hours, and the whole nine yards...

Was this before or after the yelling? If before, I hope you made a complaint. They want to know if their system is working, but those that have the power to fix things won't know unless you provide FEEDBACK.

If after you lost your temper, well, they were probably overloaded and had hundreds of other callers who were being polite and helpful. If you could pick and choose, what would you do? Do you think your yelling helped your situation in a positive way?

Re:Apple's Tech Support SUCKS

[MoneyT]

I often wonder at how much the shit people bitch about dealing with on the phone with tech support is their own problem. In roughly 10 years that I've owned or worked with macs, I've called Apple tech support plenty of times, for everything ranging from software help to a failed logic board. And in all that time, I've talked to one rep who wasn't helpful, friendly and useful.

Now, Apple's tech support has changed since it started this is true. It used to be you could call them at any time, and even if you weren't in waranty, they would help you out provided it didn't need a hardware replacement. But even now, I've only ever had one problem. And that wasn't even a huge problem, it was just less helpful than I would have liked, and it was solved by calling back and speaking to someone else.

I've never once had any major problems, and the one thing that was consistant through it all was I treated their tech people as decent normal human beings who deserved a measure of respect.

If you go into it with respect, and the expectation that something will be done, something always gets done. If you go into it thinking it's going to be a war, no one is going to walk away happy.

Re:Apple's Tech Support SUCKS

[The Lost Supertone]

Trust me, I was reasonable at first. I was totally nice and stuff, I'm not generally hostile, but the second person I talked to flat out LIED to me, and told me if the reseller said that the unit should be replaced they'd replace it. The reseller said yah this is stupid it's the second time you've brought it in for the same part tell them we say you should get a new one. And the Apple people when I told them one of their people had said that, the chick started yelling at me and telling me that NO THE OTHER GUY DIDN"T SAY THAT, at which point I got pissed off. And I asked her if I could talk to her supervisor, she said HE"LL TELL YOU THE EXACT SAME THING I DID! I said great then I can yell at her. After that I started recording my convos. If it had taken them another few days to fix everything up (it took over three days after the logic board failed for the fourth time) I was going to post the incredibly rude conversations they'd had with me on Slashdot. The guy at customer service also was very unhappy that everyone in my dorm was watching while I ranted at them. Apparently they don't like people to know how badly they treat their customers.

Ex?

[waldoj]

I am an ex-Genius

"Im glad I got a second chanse to be smart becaus I lerned a lot of things that I never even new were in this world and Im grateful that I saw it all for a little bit. I dont know why Im dumb agen or what I did wrong maybe its becaus I dint try hard enuff. But if I try and practis very hard maybe Ill get a little smarter and know what all the words are. I remember I did somthing but I dont remember what. So I guess its like I did it for all the dumb pepul like me.

"P.P.S. Please if you get a chase put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard..."

Re:Why sad? Exponential Distribution

[jbtule]

What do you mean? Electronic device failure is modeled by an exponential distribution, meaning every new day you use your computer is the highest probably it's going to fail.

Time for Court

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an iBook 14", 700 MHz G3. I bought it in late 2002. A month after I got it, my hard drive had some sort of failure, and everything on my system was lost. I sent it in to Apple so they could replace the HD, but they claimed it didn't have anything physically wrong with it. I've sent it in three more times since then, for the same problem. I've also had to have the logic board replaced. They still refuse to replace the hard drive and the new logic board, even though when I run hardware tests at home it says both are bad.

I have reached wits end. I will be suing Apple soon. Their tech support has been completely unhelpful, and even insulting. I hate to do this, as I love the OS X operating system, and the company in general, but these kinds of failures (especially with documented evidence) are completely unjustifiable.

advice from our updgrade experiences

[call -151]

My wife has a fleet of about 12 iBooks that her research students use for developing code to execute on their clusters. Those iBooks have held up really well and her students are not gentle with them. Over the course of the last couple of years, some of them, including the one she uses and her spare/loaner, have been sent back and for the most part the exchange has been great. Apple send the box quickly, you can wait and decide when to send it back when it is convenient for you to be without your machine, and the machines come back quickly from repair. For the ones that failed, there were the classic symptons - lines on the screen, weird display artifacts, and so on. Out of all of them, there was only one difficult-to-diagnose problem and that involved the old extra 512MB RAM module becoming flaky with the replacement motherboard. Apparently, some (slightly) defective modules work fine with the old motherboards but not with the replacements, so keep that open as a potential problem if things don't go smoothly and you have intermittent problems after the upgrade not related to the display. Since it was being flaky, we thought the problem was with the new motherboard but in fact a warrantee replacement RAM chip set that machine straight. The only other glitch in all those upgrades was one machine that came back without booting- they wiped the drive but forgot to install an OS, oops. At least they sent the disks...

This is ironic

[Hackie_Chan]

Ironically, my iBook broke down with this problem just this week. This is the third time for me. Amazing!